


Making Lists

by emmea12



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Cussing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 21:36:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20160475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmea12/pseuds/emmea12
Summary: Beth Henderson made lists when she was nervous or anxious. Usually they were scrawled out on napkins or the corners of magazines. They were all over her bedroom and bag. When she was in school her notebooks had been covered in them and her locker had been full of the small scraps of paper. This list was personal, however and was all in her head. It was reciting itself over and over again: get rid of the blood, get him into clean clothes, food, patch him up, sleep.Beth makes a list of things to do to put Steve back together again after Starcourt.





	Making Lists

It was 24 hours since Beth Henderson had heard from her brother, which in and of itself wasn’t something to be particularly concerned with. The kid really didn’t have the forethought or even just common decency to call home any time he made plans with his friends. Everything felt like the end of the world, or the most important thing in the world to kids his age. He had no patience, no self restraint, and no problem doing exactly what he wanted to do at any given time. Beth however, tried to convince herself that everything was fine. His bike was gone out of the garage so he was probably just hanging out with his friends. She ignored the flashbacks of Will Beyers being taken to the Upside Down. Dustin was safe. He had to be.   
What concerned her was that it had also been over 24 hours since she’d spoken to Steve, and that was cause for some serious concern. Steve wasn’t the type to break promises. Not now at least. This new, semi-responsible, and largely less of a douchebag Steve at least called when something came up. So when she was left standing outside of the library after her shift on July 3rd, she knew something was going on. Something she wasn’t going to like.  
Beth wasn’t in the dark about the weird other dimension events that had happened in Hawkins. Hell, she’d been a large part of it. Dustin got into some deep shit trying to get Will back from he Upside Down and he dragged a reluctant Beth into it. She survived but not without scars and a deep appreciation for the mundane. She also came out with a new family: a bigger, more diverse, and loving family than she’d ever had before. Her bother and mother were great, and her dad and his new family were okay, but this new patchwork of people in her life was the best thing to have happened to her in a long time.   
Beth checked everywhere the morning of the fourth: Steve’s house, the kids’ houses, the Palace, and finally the mall, where she found Steve’s car but not actually Steve. She also found Dustin’s bike in the rack at the front of the mall. Something was going on, and she’d be damned if she was just going to sit there and wait for the other shoe to drop. But wait was what she had to do because she searched the mall up and down and found no sign of her brother or her best friend. The manager at Scoops Ahoy said that neither Steve nor the girl he’d been scheduled with had turned up for work. Then why was his car in the parking lot, and where the fuck was he? So she went home and waited by the phone. Her mother was none the wiser to Beth’s fears. She wasn’t a bad mom, but she was the definition of oblivious.  
Everything was probably fine and she was just grossly over reacting, Beth kept telling herself. That was it for sure. She had such bad anxiety since Will disappeared and Eleven appeared at the same time the nightmare squad of monsters turned up. That night in the Beyers house had been one of the worst nights of her life. She dreamed about that night every time she fell asleep and thought about it every day she passed by the woods on the way to town or saw a baseball bat sitting in the garage. She’d seen the end of her life dawn before her in the Beyer’s living room with it’s hideous carpet and the horrifically scrawled alphabet painted on the wall.  
Darkness fell around nine, and the darkness brought new fears. She contemplated telling her mother a thousand times that Dustin and Steve were missing and that they were probably together and that they were probably doing something she wouldn’t approve of. How much bullshit could one town have? Maybe Hawkins’ was cursed? That had to be it. What mattered was the her little brother was gone, and her best friend was gone, and as much as she wanted to believe the best, she knew in her heart that they were probably tied up in some dumb shit, God knows where, doing God knows what.   
The phone rang loudly, breaking Beth from her musings and scared her enough to jump in her seat at the kitchen table.   
“Will you get that, Beth. My show is on,” Mrs. Henderson yelled from the living room where the TV was on at a deafening volume.  
“Hello? Dustin? Steve?” Beth said into the receiver without giving the caller time to answer until the end.  
“Beth, thank God. I was afraid your mother was going to answer.”  
“Nancy?”  
Beth and Nancy weren’t particularly close. They were friends, sure, but they didn’t hang out on their own, and they certainly didn’t call each other out of the blue. Something was wrong.  
“Yeah, it’s me. Listen, could you come pick your brother and maybe Steve up at Starcourt?” Nancy’s voice had lost all of it’s optimism it had held when Beth had answered the phone. Nancy know sounded exhausted and far away.  
“Why, maybe Steve? His car is at Starcourt.” She was fully aware that she sounded like a stalker. She really didn’t care.  
“I don’t know if they are going to take him to the hospital or not. The paramedic is looking at him now. I would take them but Jonathon and I have to deal with Mrs. Beyers and El.”  
“Nancy, what the fuck happened?” Beth said a little louder than she’d intended. She waited for a moment to listen for her mother to stir or ask her what was going on. After it became clear that the television was more enthralling than her teenaged daughter’s phone conversations, Beth repeated herself. “What happened?”  
There was a deep sigh and a terse, “Just get to the mall, Beth. Now.” The phone line went dead and Beth’s annoyance grew ten fold.  
“Mom, I’m going out for awhile,” Beth said loud enough to cut through the TV. “Nancy is having boy issues and needs to talk.” Her mother waved her away without a second thought and Beth tore out of the front door with her purse and car keys.  
The entire drive to the mall Beth feared the worst. Steve was fucked up apparently, and her suspicion that some stupid shit was going on was confirmed. Just how dumb was yet to be determined.  
She got an idea of just how dumb when she spotted the flames. “Shit,” she mumbled when she pulled into the parking lot of the Starcourt mall amongst the ambulance, police cars, and firetrucks. The mall was on fire.  
“Miss, this area is restricted,” a police office called after her as she flew past him towards the line of ambulances. He didn’t follow her, deciding that an acceptable substitute was to throw his hands up in the air and mumble something about how he tried.  
“Dustin!” Beth called. She stopped and spun around in a circle until she saw her brother’s hat poking out of what looked like a walking blanket. “Dustin!” She yelled again and started running towards the ambulance where her brother was standing next to Steve, who sat wrapped up in a blanket at the end of the ambulance with a paramedic shining a light into his eyes. He looked like shit. His hair was a mess. His eye was swollen almost shut. There were bruises littering his face and his lip was spilt. More specially he looked like he’d gotten into a fight that he couldn’t win. Again.  
At the sight of his sister, Dustin’s eyes lit up. “Beth, you will never believe what happened.” Before the younger boy could go into a full synopsis of what happened, Beth pulled him to him into a hug.  
“Jesus, Beth. Get off of me. Everyone is here.” Dustin tried to pull away from her, but failed.  
“Give your sister a hug, dipshit,” Steve said wearily from his seat. The paramedic had moved away for a moment. Steve’s eyes met hers and he cleared his throat, clearly realizing that he was in trouble. Dustin returned the hug quickly and pulled away when Beth let him go. “Do I get a hug?” Steve joked. He winced and reached up to hold his head.  
“Depends on if my urge to murder you is gonna waver after you tell me what happened here.” Beth quickly reached out and grabbed onto Dustin’s shirt before he was able to run off and escape the conversation.  
“Not likely,” Steve chuckled and then winced when the paramedic touched the side of his skull.  
“You aren’t going to need stitches, but you’ve got a concussion. I think we should take you in for the night and observe you,” the paramedic said while taking his gloves off.  
“No, no, no, no, no. No hospitals. I’m fine. Don’t be left unattended, wake up every couple hours to make sure I haven’t slipped into a coma, watch out for slurred speech and double vision. I’ve got it,” Steve stood up and crumpled the blanket up to give back to the paramedic.  
“Does this happen to you a lot?” the paramedic asked incredulously as he further eyed the damage to Steve’s face.  
“More than he’d like to admit,” Beth answered for him while she ignored Steve shooting her a withering look.  
“Twice before this that I know of,” Dustin added.  
“Once!” Steve corrected.  
“Jonathon doesn’t count,” Beth added much to Steve’s surprise. “We don’t count the dumb shit King Steve did.” Steve smiled a little to himself at her words.  
“I really must advise that you come with us,” the paramedic tried one last time. He took Steve’s blanket and Dustin’s blanket that Steve had just pulled off of the boy and crumpled up like his own.  
Steve seemed okay enough. He was bantering and walking semi straight. Straight enough for the wobble to be blamed on exhaustion rather than the fact that his body was badly beaten. Beth felt confident enough in his ability to stay alive.  
“I’ll take him home, sir,” Beth said loudly over both Steve and Dustin starting to protest. At her words the conversation stilled. “If I notice anything weird tonight, I’ll pack him up in the car myself and bring him in. We’ve had some experience with this. I’ll know the signs.”  
The paramedic nodded and seemed like he accepted that as answer.  
“Should we go?” Beth asked. The smoke from the fire and the sight of Steve’s blood smeared all over his face and shirt was making her nauseous. “We need to get you cleaned up.”  
“Please,” Steve sighed. He sounded relieved, and exhausted and in pain.  
“I need to go say bye to everyone,” Dustin protested loudly. He ran towards Max and Lucas who stood next to another ambulance before Beth could insist they leave now.   
“Hurry up, Dustin!” Beth yelled after him. Beth looked over at Steve and met his eyes. “You want me to get the car? It’s a little walk away.”  
Steve shook his head. “I’m fine. Let’s go.” The walk to the car was quiet and strange. There was no banter like usual. His arm wasn’t draped over her shoulders or his hand wasn’t settled on her back as he led her to the car. He was off kilter.  
When they got in the car, and they waited for Dustin, the awkwardness of the situation really became suffocating.  
Things with Steve, at the beginning of their friendship, were strained. He hadn’t yet transformed into this new Steve. They’d gone to school together for forever but she wasn’t the type of person that would garner his attention then. She was smart and a bit of a loser. Not the sort of person that King Steve would bother noticing at all. That wasn’t bad of course. It was better to be ignored than be tormented by his friends.  
Then, three years ago all hell broke loose in Hawkins and Beth happened to turn up at the Beyers home while Nancy, Jonathon, and Steve were fighting a monster that looked a little like a walking nightmare flower shark hybrid.  
Things changed after that. Steve spoke to Beth in the hall and they studied together some. He sought her out at lunch, and they sat in on the kid’s game nights. Not a huge deal. It was nice really. But then Dustin adopted a demogorgon and that demogorgon ate their family cat. So how does Dustin fix it? By dragging Steve and Beth into a grand royal fight with said demogorgon plus several bonus demogorgons and they all almost die. After that, Steve and Beth became closer and closer until they hung out more with each other than they didn’t.   
Things weren’t awkward after that. They were family now: inseparable and connected. So this weird sitting-in-the-car-in-silence while the smell of the blood in his hair choked her was a year too late and far too terrible for her to accept. They might as well have been in Geometry class freshman year when Steve was assigned to her as a partner on a project and he said, “who’s Beth Henderson” like he hadn’t been in the same kindergarten class as her.   
“So,” Beth whispered awkwardly. “Wanna tell me what happened?”  
Steve closed his eyes and rested his head on the car window but remained silent.  
“Steve?” Beth asked gently when the silence became too much.  
“Hopper is dead,” Steve said suddenly with a sigh. It was as if the information had just breached the levee of his will like a river with too much water.   
“What?” It came out weak and detached. It lined with what Nancy said on the phone. Why else would she have said that she was going to have to deal with Joyce and El?  
“He’s gone, Beth. Dead. Never to be seen again,” Steve snapped a little too harshly. The weight of Hopper’s death was sinking onto him slowly. He was never very upset about the death around him before. This nightmare, the Upside-Down, the Demagorgon, had never taken anyone from Steve that Steve couldn’t survive without. He hadn’t known Barb all that well, and Bob even less. Even Billy, freshly dead and burning inside of the mall wasn’t a huge hit to Steve emotionally. Hopper though: Hop’s death just hurt everywhere. It was the type of hurt that made your stomach cramp and your ears ring. It was all encompassing. Because while none of the other’s had deserved to die, Hopper had deserved it even less.  
On the other side of the car, grief flooded over Beth in a giant wave. Hopper, Jesus Christ. “Fuck,” she said as she fought through the tears that threatened spill over. “Fuck.”  
Steve reached over and grabbed her hand tightly without looking at her. She saw him wipe his eyes discreetly in the reflection of the window and she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.  
“Does Dustin know?” The knowledge that Hopper’s death would hit the kids even harder than it hit them was almost panic inducing. Hadn’t these children been through quite enough?  
“Um,” Steve’s voice cracked and he took a minute to gather himself. “I don’t think so. I don’t think any of the kids know yet. Maybe El.”  
“Okay.” Beth sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes again. “Not tonight. We can’t tell him tonight.” She squeezed his hand and let it go. Reality hit her all at once though. “He’ll find out tonight though won’t he? Will will find out and then they’ll all know. Fuck, we’ll have to bring him with us to your house.” She was rambling. “He can sleep on the couch. We can unplug the phone and take the batteries out of his radio. Hide his bike. We can-”  
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” Steve said and leaned over to her seat, looking at her for the first time since they got into the car. His eyes were glassy: one swollen almost shut and both red and bloody.  
“It’s not okay! He’s going to be devastated. They are all going to be devastated. Fuck. What are we going to do. And Christ, look at your face. Jesus.” Beth placed her hand on his cheek gingerly. “What the hell happened? Where were you? You were supposed to be at the library. We were supposed to go bowling, Steve. Who did this to you?”   
Steve shut his eyes and took a deep, steading breath.“I will tell you everything. I promise. Let’s just get Dustin and get out of here,” Steve pleaded. “My head is killing me.”  
After Beth nodded, Steve settled back into his seat and rested his head on the window again. His hand however found her’s and held it lightly.  
A few tense minutes later filled with sniffling and silence, Dustin appeared at Beth’s drivers window, red faced and watery eyed. Fuck, he knows.  
“Do you know about Hopper?” Dustin asked quietly. The kid looked heartbroken. After Beth nodded her head, Dustin sniffled. “We’re going to stay at Mike’s house.” There was no explanation and no room for negotiations. The tight group of friends needed to be together, and that’s all that mattered. Beth could relate.  
Beth nodded. “I’ll call mom and tell her. I’m telling her that I’m staying with Nancy but I’ll be at Steve’s, okay? If mom calls, tell her I’m asleep.” Dustin nods. They’d covered for each other too many times for there to be a debate or conversation about it. They had a mutual understanding. “I love you.”  
“I love you too,” Dustin whispered before he hugged her through the open window. “Bye Steve. Thanks for - you know - saving my life again, I guess.”  
“I’ll see you later, buddy,” Steve said with a sudden injection of faux energy.  
Dustin nodded and turned around to walk slowly back to his weeping friends.  
Twenty minutes later Steve and Beth walked into Steve’s parents empty dark home.  
“You want me to wash your hair out in the sink or do you wanna take a shower?” Beth asked quietly. She needed to do something productive to keep her mind busy. Putting her best friend back together was just the thing.  
“I kind of just want to go to bed.” Steve gingerly lowered himself onto a breakfast bar stool and rested his elbows on the kitchen counter. Beth was unsure if she’d ever seen someone look so exhausted in her life.  
“You’ll ruin your sheets,” Beth countered. As if that mattered at all. Jesus Christ, he was a nineteen year old boy. What the fuck does he care about ruining some sheets? “Plus, I think you’ll feel better without all that blood everywhere.” She recovered quickly and gained her control back because that’s what she needed now: some sort of control over the situation that felt too big for just the two of them.  
Steve sighed and went to run his hands over his face before he remembered what kind of pain that would induce. Beth could practically see the adrenaline seeping out of his body and his mind registering the pain piece by terrible piece.  
“I want to take a shower, but I don’t think I’ll be able to wash my hair. I was tied to a chair and fell so I fucked my shoulder up and I don’t think my arms will go up that high for long enough to wash all of the blood out.”  
Beth ignored all of that information because why the fuck was her best friend tied to a chair in the first place? She couldn’t deal with that. That wasn’t the important problem right now. One disaster at a time.   
“Okay,” she breathed. “Let’s go up to your bathroom and wash your hair out. Then you can take a shower while I make you something to eat. Then I’ll patch you up and we can go to bed.” 

Beth Henderson made lists when she was nervous or anxious. Usually they were scrawled out on napkins or the corners of magazines. They were all over her bedroom and bag. When she was in school her notebooks had been covered in them and her locker had been full of the small scraps of paper. This list was personal, however and was all in her head. It was reciting itself over and over again: get rid of the blood, get him into clean clothes, food, patch him up, sleep.   
Steve knew this well. He also knew that deviating from that list, especially when she was scared was an unwise decision for the both of them. Bringing attention to the fact that she was doing it was also unwise. So he only nodded and winced when he stood back up from the chair and slowly made his way up the stairs to his bedroom. He was followed closely behind by Beth.  
“Why are there so many stairs,” he complained. He was met with absolutely no commiseration from Beth who only followed and looked as if she was ready to catch him at the slightest wobble. As if she’d be able to physically catch him falling down the stairs. Wouldn’t that be perfect? Then he would have killed them both with his sheer inability to stay out of trouble.  
When they made it to his bedroom, he flipped on the light and was only a little embarrassed by how messy it all was. Beth didn’t pause as she kicked her shoes and socks off, rolled her pants up and made her way into the small bathroom.  
“Sorry about the mess,” he said and tried to pick up a few pieces of dirty clothing off the floor and put them into the hamper.   
“Don’t worry about it, Steve,” Beth said tersely. “Let’s get this done and move on. You’ll feel better.” Beth turned on the water to the tub on and he noticed that she carried a plastic cup in her hand to pour water over his head with. When did she grab that? As she waited with her hand under the tap, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath while Steve just stood there like a kid with no place to go.  
He kneeled down on the ground where she’d need him to be and watched her. The water was beginning to steam but her hand never moved. The skin turned pink and then red but she kept it under the tap. “Beth,” Steve said. When she didn’t react, lost deep in thought, he reached over and pulled her hand out himself and looked up at her eyes that finally met his.  
“Steve,” Beth said weakly before lowering her forehead onto his shoulder and keeping it there for just a moment as she listened to him breathe.  
“Hey,” Steve cooed softly. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” He brought his hand up to her hair and stroked gently while she leaned against him. She was cracking a little.   
One deep breath later, Beth was back at it. She grabbed a couple towels from the cupboard and laid them on the edge of the tub so the hard porcelain won’t hurt Steve when he leaned against it. “Lean against this. I’ll be quick.” He obliged silently and relished in how gently she poured the warm water over his head and how softly she scraped his scalp with her finger nails, lathering the shampoo. Steve had a front row, perfect view of the red tinged water and suds being rinsed from his head as she poured cup after cup of warm water over his head to rinse it. “I think we’ll skip the conditioner this time around. Your hair won’t fall out. I promise.” She gingerly rung his hair out a little and tapped him on the shoulder for him to straighten up.  
“I’m gonna grab you some clean clothes, hold on.” He didn’t protest as Beth stood up and went rummaging through his drawers before finding a tee shirt, and a pair of sweatpants for him.  
Steve eyed her movements as she set them on the bathroom counter. “I’m going to go downstairs make something for you to eat and call my mom. You mind keeping the door open so I can hear you if you fall or something? I promise to stay downstairs unless I think something happened.”  
Steve nodded and she smiled weakly. “I’ll see what food I can come up with. On a scale of 1 to 10 how hungry are you?”  
“Like a 5. I should be starving but the nausea is keeping it manageable.” Steve looked a little pathetic with his bruised face and sopping hair falling into his eyes.  
“Good old concussions will do that to you,” Beth tried to joke but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Get cleaned up and yell for me when you are ready for food. I’ll bring it up here so that you don’t have to take the stairs again.”  
Steve nodded again and went to take his sailor shirt off as Beth made her escape out of his bathroom and down the stairs to the kitchen that had almost zero food in it but surprisingly no dirty dishes. She made a note on her mental list for tomorrow to drive into town and buy some groceries but tonight she’d have to do her best. Praise God he had a half a loaf of almost stale bread. She made toast and a couple scrambled eggs. Nothing too heavy and nothing too complicated. In the downstairs bathroom, under the sink, she retrieved the first aid kit and set it on the counter next to the plate of food and glass of water. While she waited for Steve to give her the all clear she called her mother quickly and told her that she and Dustin were staying at the Wheelers. Her mother believed her lie without question. Beth almost felt a little guilty.   
Four minutes later he called for her. It was a little bit of a struggle carrying everything upstairs in one trip but she managed without spilling anything.  
Steve was sitting on the edge of his bed in the clean clothes she’d found him. “Here you go. I hope it’s okay.” She handed him the plate of food and set the water on his bedside table. “Eat while I take a look at your face.” She pulled his towel he had used off of the floor and towel dried his hair gently and brushed it back with her fingers so that it was out of her way. She pretended not to notice his eyes closing when her fingers scratched his scalp.  
She dragged Steve’s barely used desk chair to the spot right in front of where he was sitting and lowered herself onto it before opening the first aid kit and pulling out some rubbing alcohol and cotton buds.  
“Are you not eating?” Steve asked in-between slow mouthfuls of eggs. He hissed when the cotton bud of alcohol touched his split cheek.  
“Shit, sorry, this is going to hurt,” she apologized. “And don’t worry about me. I’m not hungry.”  
“Bullshit,” he said. He scooped up a forkful of eggs and held it out for her to eat.  
Beth shook her head and pressed the alcohol onto the cut on his lip. “You need to eat that, Steve. How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”  
“I had some popcorn out of the trash can like three or four hours ago,” he tried to joke.   
“Well, as nutritious as that sounds, you need to eat some real food.” She continued her work, but he didn’t move the fork of eggs away. After thirty seconds of Beth trying to ignore the eggs, she sighed dramatically and let him feed them to her. “Are you happy?” she grumbled.  
“Not really, but better than I was 45 seconds ago.” He picked up a piece of toast, took a bite and offered Beth a bite, which she took without argument this time.  
They continued like this for a few minutes: Beth silently treating Steve’s broken face and Steve eating while intermittently feeding her.   
When the had both finished, Beth took the first aid kit and dishes downstairs and refilled his water glass.  
“So,” Beth said when she came back into his room. “Are you ready for bed?”  
Steve was still sitting on the edge of he bed with his head in his hands as if waiting for her to instruct him what to do. When he heard her voice he look up and nodded. “Yes, please.” He stood up and pulled the blankets down and crawled in bed while Beth watched.  
“Can I get you anything?” She asked softly.  
“You can get into bed, Beth, and let me tell you this story,” he grumbled sleepily.  
“I think it’s best that I sleep in the guest room tonight. Remember, I kick and I really don’t want to wake you,” she put her hand on his forehead and pushed his hair back but he caught her hand.  
“You won’t wake me up,” he insisted. “Change and get into bed.”  
There was no arguing with him about this. He’d made up his mind and unfortunately, when Steve Harrington made up his mind, it was resolute. At least when it came to her. “Please,” he added weakly.  
Beth changed quickly into a pair of pajamas that stayed in the bottom left hand drawer of his dresser mixed in with his teeshirts and then quietly got into in the other side of the bed. Steve looked like he was already asleep, but as soon as he felt her body weight lower in next to him, he wrapped his arms around her.  
“Ready for that story,” he whispered.  
“Tomorrow,” she said. “It will be just as exciting and heartbreaking tomorrow. I need you to rest now. Please.” She rested her head on his chest and noticed that he fell asleep almost immediately.  
——————————————————————————————————————  
The plan had been to wake up every couple hours to make sure that he was still alive. That didn’t happen. When Beth woke up the next morning, or afternoon rather, she found Steve’s alarm clock unplugged and Steve asleep next to her. He was snoring softly, so she figured the risk of him being in a coma was gone.  
She’d seen some pancake mix downstairs when she was down there last night, so she went to the kitchen and started making pancakes. After ten or fifteen minutes, a groggy Steve found her in the kitchen.  
“Good morning,” she said brightly. She smiled and met him halfway with a plate of pancakes. He leaned over and kissed the side of her head affectionately.  
“Good morning,” he repeated. “These look great.” He took the glass of milk she handed to him and two aspirins. “Thanks.”  
“No problem,” she leaned against the counter and took a bite of the pancakes on her own plate. “I’m going into town later for food. Any special requests?”  
Steve’s eyes fell onto a small notebook that Beth kept in her purse sitting on the kitchen counter with a list already made for the day. It was long.  
“Come sit with me,” he sighed and patted the seat next to him. She obliged and he grabbed her hand. “Relax,” he said soothingly. “I’m fine. I didn’t die overnight and everything is okay. You don’t need a list to keep me together. You don’t have to worry about me. I promise.”  
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Beth said and uncomfortably pulled her hand away from his and stood up again.  
“Beth-”  
“Steve, drop it. You could have died,-”  
“You don’t even know what happened!”  
“Yeah, but I can imagine. And I have eyes. People just don’t get beaten to a goddamn pulp while they are safe. That shit just doesn’t happen. Not to mention that the Startcourt burned to the fucking ground last night which I’m pretty sure you and my brother had at least something to do with.”  
“This is not the first time something like this has happened,” he argued loudly, his head splitting. “I can handle this."  
“Yeah, well this is the first time it’s happened since I’ve loved you,” Beth yelled. She regretted her words the second they left her mouth. The room was silent for a moment, only the echo of her words could be heard.  
“You love me?” Steve said in barely a whisper.  
“That’s not the point,” Beth argued. “But of course I do, you big asshole.”  
Steve stood up and moved towards her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
“I don’t know, Steve. Fear I guess. I really don’t know. It’s okay. Help me put together a grocery list so that you can eat more than carbs for the next week.” She tired to turn around to go back to her list, but Steve’s hands stopped her. He was a lot stronger than he looked. He leaned down and kissed her, an action that Beth promptly stopped by pushing his gently away.  
“Stop, Steve. Please.” She pulled away from him and left him standing there while she went to the kitchen counter. “I was thinking a roast for dinner. You can heat it up for a few nights for dinners.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and added carrots to the list. She hands shook as she wrote.   
“Beth.”  
“Mashed potatoes too. Those will keep alright in the fridge.”  
“Beth.”   
“Cereal for breakfast. Milk for sure. You like 2 percent right?”  
“Beth!” Steve yelled. His voice cracked and when Beth looked up at him, he looked even more broken than he did last night. “We need to talk about this,” he demanded.  
Beth closed her eyes and leaned against the counter.  
“Not right now.”  
“And why not?”  
“Because this is not how I wanted this to go. This is not how I wanted to tell you. That wasn’t how I wanted our first kiss to be. I don’t want you to decide that you want to be with me after our friend died, and you’ve nearly died along with him. I don’t want this to be some emotionally compromised thing that fizzles out when you feel better again, and Hopper’s death doesn’t sting so badly. Then, all we will be left with is what-might-have-beens and a broken relationship that means too much to be to break.” The words came out fast but strong and clear.  
“I’m not emotionally compromised,” he argued and took a stop closer to her. “I know what I want.”  
“Steve, stop.” Beth put her hand up to stop him from coming any closer. “I’m going to go to the grocery store. Lay down,” she looked at him and tried to contort her face into sternness but failed miserably. She blamed her damn mouth for all of this. “Please,” she begged.  
“I want to talk about this,” he said firmly. He could feel his heartbeat in his head as it throbbed in his skull.  
Beth closed her eyes and sighed. “Fine,” she said softly. “When I get back. We’ll sit down and talk about it. Will you please rest while I’m gone?”  
Steve was mad. Beth could always tell with only a glance what he was feeling and she needed even less than that to know he was livid. “Fine, Beth. I’ll see you when you get back.” He was out of her sight in seconds, having completely abandoned his pancakes.  
——————————————————————————————————————-  
  
The house was loud when Beth returned with the groceries. There were children inside, 7 to be exact, sitting around Steve who sat on the couch with a blanket on his lap.  
“And then, Erica and I stormed in and saved Robin and Steve!” Dustin said dramatically.  
“I can’t believe you teamed up with my baby sister, Dustin. She’s so damn annoying,” Lucas laughed.  
“Hey,” Steve protested. “Be nice. She saved my ass down there.”  
“I guess I will have to hear that story after all,” Beth said to announce her arrival. Steve’s eyes found hers immediately and then saw the shopping bags in her hands. He went to stand up to help and groaned.   
“Steve, I’ve got it. Stay seated.” Beth went to the kitchen without another word, and heard the kids delve into another facet of the story. All of that noise couldn’t be good for the concussed boy sitting on the couch.  
“We need to talk.” The words came from behind her as she put the food away, causing her to turn around quickly and drop a box of cereal to the ground.  
“Let me put the food away,” she said but a hand came down onto of hers and stopped her from continuing  
“No,” Steve said firmly. “Let’s go outside.”  
He led her to the backyard, into the summer heat. They sat on the edge of two pool chairs facing each other. Beth let her attention fall to a black inner-tube floating on the surface of the immaculate water.  
“We need to actually talk about this,” he gestured between himself and Beth.  
“What is there to talk about, Steve,” Beth said.  
“Why are you fighting this so hard?”  
“I’m not fighting shit. I’m stopping this before it gets too far.”  
“It hasn’t gone anywhere.” Steve grabbed Beth’s hand only for her to pull it away and stand up.  
“Exactly. That’s exactly what we need. We need to cool it. We need to take a step back and reassess the situation.”  
“I’m not even sure that you know the situation. I’m in love with you,” he stated as a matter-of-fact. That stopped Beth in her tracks.  
“That’s bullshit, Steve,” she laughed. “I’m not your type.”  
“What is exactly my type?” He ignored the pang in his chest at the word “bullshit” coming out of the mouth of a girl he loved.  
Beth paused for a moment. “Nancy Wheeler,” she said plainly.  
“I haven’t loved Nancy Wheeler in over a year,” Steve protested. “No one since her either. Except you.”   
“And when did you realize this? This morning when I accidentally told you how I feel?”  
“No. The night Billy almost killed me. Near death experience 2.0 as I like to call it,” he chuckled. “You took care of me after that too. Last night was like deja’vu. Except it wasn’t Billy Hargrove that beat me up, it was a Russian general and his cronies.”  
“What the fuck?”  
Steve smiled and put both of his hands gingerly on her shoulders. He fully anticipated her to pull away from him, and was a little surprised when she didn’t. “That’s a story for later. This is far more important than that.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“There are a lot of things I’m not sure of. I’m not sure of what I’m going to do now that my only source of income is ashes. I’m not sure what my dad’s going to say when he comes home and I have to tell him I got into another fight. I’m not sure if tomorrow a demagorgon is going to rip me to shreds. What I am sure of is that I’ve been in love with you for a very long time and I’m not going to just stand here and let you throw it away because you are scared that it’s going to ruin something. Fuck everything else. Fuck everyone else. It’s just you and me. And the kids, I guess. They matter too. So, fuck everyone but the kids.”  
Beth laughed and stepped closer to him. His hands moved from her shoulders to her head. “Yes,” she breathed. “I love you too.”  
Steve pulled her close to him and kissed her deeply. He ignored the stinging pain where his lip was split and the pain in his head dissipated into nothing. He felt better in this moment than he had in months. When they finally pulled away, Steve rested his forehead on hers and caught his breath. “So, we’re going to do this? We’re going to give this a shot?”  
Beth nodded and went up onto her tiptoes to kiss him again.  
“Hey,” a voice from the house yelled. “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Dustin came out of the house looking furious.  
“Shit, dude,” Steve stumbled over his words. His hand nervously went to the back of his neck. “I’m sor-“  
“Not you, asshole,” Dustin waved Steve away dismissively and looked to his sister. “What the hell do you think you are doing with my best friend, Henderson?”  
Steve paused for a moment and finally let out a barking laugh. Beth stood in shock.  
“It’s not funny, Steve,” Dustin argued. “This is serious. There are rules. There are boundaries that must be honored. My sister can not suck face with my best friend.”  
“Jesus,” Beth laughed. She ignored her brother and stepped up to kiss Steve again.  
“Oh my God. I’m going inside before you two do something that will scar me for life. Try to keep it in your pants, Beth.” Dustin turned around and walked towards the house. “Shit!” he yelled before sliding the door open and slamming it shut.  
  



End file.
